Stranger than his fiction: Joe Eszterhas on screenwriting
Joe Eszterhas's story is
stranger than the plots of his screenplays.
“Basic Instinct” sold
for the highest amount ever paid to a screenwriter at the time, and he’d also
worked on two big hits, “Flashdance” and “Jagged Edge.” He billed himself as Hollywood's first star screenwriter and claimed that those who found him annoying just wanted script writers to be neither heard nor seen--just paid well to go away once the script was done.
However, many said his ego was
bigger than his talent and cite “Showgirls” as evidence (although a box office
flop it became a best-seller on video). In 1998, David Plotz wrote in Slate: “No
profession embraces the brash and talentless more warmly than themovie industry, and no one is better
evidence of this than Joe Eszterhas.”
Plotz was writing on the
occasion of the release of Eszterhas’s Hollywood satire, “An Alan Smithee Film:
Burn HollywoodBurn.” Plotz noted, “Critics
have called it "bilious," "ham-handed," "a hapless
display ... of groundless vanity," a "wretched fiasco." Even
Eric Idle, the movie's star,
dismissed the film as "not funny." Burn
Hollywood Burn cost $10 million and grossed approximately ...
nothing."
For nine years after that,
Eszterhas had nothing produced and his flair for self-promotion and his
dedication to sex, violence and drugs faltered. He developed cancer of the
larynx and had a breakdown. He turned to God and moved to Ohio and wrote his
memoirs.
In this clip he talks about screenwriting.
It was shot in 2006 while he was promoting his book, “The Devil’s Guide to
Hollywood.”
Comments
Stranger than his fiction: Joe Eszterhas on screenwriting
Joe Eszterhas's story is
stranger than the plots of his screenplays.
“Basic Instinct” sold
for the highest amount ever paid to a screenwriter at the time, and he’d also
worked on two big hits, “Flashdance” and “Jagged Edge.” He billed himself as Hollywood's first star screenwriter and claimed that those who found him annoying just wanted script writers to be neither heard nor seen--just paid well to go away once the script was done.
However, many said his ego was
bigger than his talent and cite “Showgirls” as evidence (although a box office
flop it became a best-seller on video). In 1998, David Plotz wrote in Slate: “No
profession embraces the brash and talentless more warmly than themovie industry, and no one is better
evidence of this than Joe Eszterhas.”
Plotz was writing on the
occasion of the release of Eszterhas’s Hollywood satire, “An Alan Smithee Film:
Burn HollywoodBurn.” Plotz noted, “Critics
have called it "bilious," "ham-handed," "a hapless
display ... of groundless vanity," a "wretched fiasco." Even
Eric Idle, the movie's star,
dismissed the film as "not funny." Burn
Hollywood Burn cost $10 million and grossed approximately ...
nothing."
For nine years after that,
Eszterhas had nothing produced and his flair for self-promotion and his
dedication to sex, violence and drugs faltered. He developed cancer of the
larynx and had a breakdown. He turned to God and moved to Ohio and wrote his
memoirs.
In this clip he talks about screenwriting.
It was shot in 2006 while he was promoting his book, “The Devil’s Guide to
Hollywood.”